resurfacing for the equinox

"Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen.
Keep in the sunlight."
~Ben Franklin

I won't lie. I'm not my usual sunny self.

I've been feeling blue. I've been worrying. Fretting. Busying about. Feeling frazzled. Overscheduled. Having various routine medical tests and dental work. Missing dear friends and family. Planning. Meeting. Doing. Cooking. Working. Reading too much about the affairs of the world and worrying some more.

My worries are the same as most citizens of the world.

I crave quiet stillness.

 In lieu a surplus of that though, I did manage to grill some steaks to a shoe leathery texture and char a couple zucchini. Fortunately , the pumpkin bread and roasted garlic, rosemary potatoes were unmarred.

 

After that, we all enjoyed a fire and s'mores in the backyard. Autumnal Equinox not only marks a new season but it is also the first day we light the fire cauldron after the heat of summer. Some swallows danced in the sunset and our fingers were sticky. For a while I wasn't distracted by my worries.

Not Back to School: Year 5

No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy , the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child.The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.

Emma Goldman (writer, political activist, anarchist)

Around this time of year, I start planning, evaluating, reevaluating, tossing out ideas, brainstorming, rifling through tons of books, reviewing past projects and thinking about what has worked and what has not worked on our path to educating our children. This is my annual Not Back to School ritual. 

One thing I like to do is review our reasons for choosing to educate our own.

I have discovered that our reasons have not changed much over the years. Here are my top 4 reasons for homeschooling.

1. Ability to spend meaningful and abundant time with our children; interacting with them, learning who they are, engaging in conflict and resolution, adapting to their needs and abilities.
2. Exposing our children to the community and various ages of children and adults
3. Ability to follow our children's interests and freely spend our time exploring the sciences and arts and reading a lot without time or curriculum restraints.
4. Having one less institution directing our lives.

 lly by girlchild and mama

As in everything, there are challenges. Finances and finding enough time to meet everyone's needs are THE single most enduring challenges of homeschooling for us but we do try to be creative in addressing these life puzzles.

After that, I start thinking about things we did last year. Things that petered out and things that the kids were  constantly excited about.

 After all these years, I've come up with few guiding principles.

 
1. Math, reading, piano, and Spanish¹are skills and need to be practiced. Everything else is a subject.
2.  Cooperative learning situations are wonderful and provide learning and social opportunities for both children and adults. Seriously, learning to cooperate is something one keeps learning, even when you are 36 years old :)
3. Boredom is an invaluable learning tool.
4.  Household duties and work are also invaluable learning tools and gives children a sense of control and ownership over his/her domain, as well as, building confidence, building body and mind and letting them know they have an important role in the family.
6.  A little structure is not a bad thing. I have swung back and forth here. We've never been rigidly structured but I've come to learn that our children appreciate some structure. They like knowing what they are doing, what is expected and what is coming next. I implemented a notebook system, whereby I write down expectations (which include household duties) and I also include events and their times (like going to the library, park trips, field trips). Often, the kids are involved in the schedule this task and have input. This  especially helps our older child learn to manage his time. When assignments and duties are done, he is free to do what he likes. Kinda like how most people run their days.
7. Learning happens ALL of the time and EVERYWHERE.
8. Curiosity is science. Failure is science. Science is all around us.
9. Volunteerism is something a child will choose to do naturally if given the opportunity.
10. Children are never too old to be read to aloud (so far).

 Sometimes I wonder if our days look starkly different for other HS'ers. So, I thought it might be helpful to sketch out what week will look like for us this year.

Mondays: History Co-Op (9:30-noon) This year we will concentrate on Virginia History. Lots of group projects while at co-op and reading biographies and related books on off days. There will be plenty of field trips too since we live in Richmond.

Tuesdays: SHARE Co-Op (9:30-12:30): This is our big co-op (13 families). We rent a building with classroom spaces and a kitchen. We have 4 age groups.Babies, pre-K, and two elementary groups. We hire a Spanish teacher, then have a Geography class and and Arts/Sciences Class. In essence, there are three classes every Thursday. This year I'm looking forward to guiding the children in Nature Journaling.
(12:30-2:30) Lunch at the Park with our co-op.

Wednesdays: & Thursdays: Spelling, Math, & Writing (especially letter writing). We will work on projects (like our weather station, sculptures, paintings, drawings, nature observations, gardening.

Fridays:  piano lessons and I'm hoping to find a dance class for the girlchild. The rest of the day is open for discussion.

Weekly: Boychild practices piano every day in addition to household duties. Chris works 40 hrs. a week and I work 25+ hours a week. Chris plays soccer twice a week and has band practice once a week. We all enjoy reading and listening to books on tape while driving or cooking. Our children spend a good deal of time visiting friends or having friends over. We often find there are too many things to do and find ourselves craving downtime. Our fluid schedule and flexibility allows us to be mindful of over scheduling.

Fred by boychild

I'll close with another favorite quote of mine.

 Since we can't know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is
senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out
people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able
to learn whatever needs to be learned. ~John Holt

<sub>¹Of course, I'm referring to the subjects and skills our family is studying now. There are certainly other skills to be mastered.
__________________
Post script: This year I am going to try with great diligence to stop the habit of justifying our educational choices to people. I often find myself in this situation. It usually starts out innocently enough; say, when someone asks my son if he sick, therefore absent from school.
Or, when a new acquaintance learns (after knowing me for a few weeks) that I homeschool our children. Apparently, I do not fit the stereotype and it causes folks great confusion. They are suddenly incapable of relating to me.

I've also noticed that many liberal folks have such a sentimental attachment to the public school system that I am seen as a traitor for not diving into the trenches and trying to make the public school system a better place.
I'm just a little tired of it all and feel that I will happily discuss my choice with folks who are genuinely interested and the rest will get my bean dip response.....which is to say, I will change the subject toute suite ! Wish me luck :)</sub>

silent brilliance

I remember my first meteor shower. I was 16 years old. I didn't know it was a meteor shower. I was sitting on my mother's front porch smoking a cigarette. Our house was on a small hill in a small neighborhood. The porch faced west and on the horizon was a farm and some rolling hills. I was staring into the horizon at a very colorful purple-trying -to-be-pink sunset when suddenly a shower of falling stars fell across the horizon. I had never seen a falling star before, much less a shower of them. I was certain it was a sign but I didn't know what of....

Last night, Chris was at band practice (breaking in their new practice space).

The children were at Lilly White's Birthday party ( A euphemism for "in bed" or "going to bed". My father used to say it to me and his mother said it to him and that is all we know about  the origins of Lily White's Birthday party.)

The weather has been unseasonably cool. Not the dog days of August at all.

I put on socks and pants and took a blanket out to our back deck. There I would lie down in Chris' super relax Father's Day present chair and observe the Perseids.

But not before I met the Raccoon family face to face. I have mentioned these critters before. Pillagers of my garden. Destroyers of blow pools and Slip & Slides. Ones who rustle and rifle though our recycling, licking peanut butter from jars and strewing things about. Ones who stole my son's placenta  from a cooler on the back porch after hurricane Isabelle pummeled our neighborhood.

They were interesting. Baby raccoons make very sweet cooing purrlike sounds and are curious. I intend to uninvite them by removing the birdfeeder at night and bringing in the recycling.

After running off the raccoons (by making very weird spaceship sounds because growls and hisses and barking proved ineffective) I relaxed and gazed upward for 2 silent hours of bliss.

I observed four meteors and wondered that I could not perceive a sound. They were so bright and furious, the sound of vaporizing meteors,even though they are only as big as a grain of sand, must make a magnificent sound.

They probably do, I just couldn't hear them from way down here. I'm sure it is a sign of something.

basking in the bounty

Summer has been bountiful. Not all of the bounty has been completely welcome. The constant bickering that has now become habit for one nearly 9 year old boy and his 4 1/2 year old sister, for instance. There is also not a bounty of dollars or minutes...but that is not so troubling really when one has her fill of friends, is happy with her work and one's garden is producing delicious figs, tomatoes and basil.

I also have a bounty of critters. Fortunately, they do not like tomatoes and figs and basil.

tomatoes and basil from Kimmy's GardenThe learning co-op our family has been a part of for five years now just met to start planning for the fall. At our last meeting I felt so very pleased to be involved with these 13 families and I'm looking forward to working with the children. I splurged on a very nice book about nature journaling and will be leading workshops in co-op next year. 

The Mother Bars I've been selling on Etsy and around the neighborhood to friends and acquaintances are now on sale at the Globe Hopper, the shop where I am the chef and a barista. Mother Bars are selling really well and it feels so good to be feeding people good, simple, tasty food!

Oh, regarding the bickering siblings. I know I am not the only parent who has lamented this unpleasantness. I have yet to master not letting their negative energy affect me. I have yet to figure out to appropriate method of helping them work out their conflicts but I did find find a way to spend 2 shining, perfect hours with my children while also cooking dinner.

I let them turn the kitchen chairs in to little beds and boychild toted his tape player into the kitchen. We listened to Red Wall on tape while I cooked. They had a snack and girlchild played with seashells and fairy magnets. It was 2 blissful hours and a fun way to cook dinner. If you haven't read or listened to Red Wall, I recommend it.. It is a fabulous woodland creature epic fantasy.

Yes, one could say I am basking in the bounty of my life.

treasures

 

My weekend was divine. Chris and the kids were out of town.  I think that is the first time that has ever happened. So, I took that opportunity to spend quality time with two very dear friends, Nancy and Debbie. We've become something of a trio and one of us is moving to Ohio. It was a bitter sweet weekend but we did not fritter it away. We went to some thrift stores, ate chocolate for lunch (don't tell the kids), grabbed some coffee and chatted away uninterrupted for hours.

Later, we came back to my empty bungalow and watched a fantastic movie. We'd never watched a movie together!  Then I made eggrolls and we went to witness the spectacle of Purple Martins coming to roost in Shockoe Bottom. Thousands of birds swooping and whirling down from the sky to spend the night in the city. We watched like awe filled children, oohing and ahhing as the swallows tornadoed around the buildings in unison like a school of fish and then alighted in the Bradford Pear trees.  A hawk swooped in picking off a frail bird for dinner; gobbling it up on a telephone pole above the crowd that had assembled. It was a great sight to behold. The birds will be gathering until next month when they will migrate to South America. 

Afterwards, we had a nightcap at GlobeHopper, laughed and loved and tried not to get teary. Yesterday was a treasure....all of them are, really.